


Language of Ash

by Sylv



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-29
Updated: 2012-11-29
Packaged: 2017-11-19 19:36:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylv/pseuds/Sylv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And in their eyes, he saw everything in his nightmares, everything that made him think that what his country was doing was wrong. [Pre Agni Kai. Zukocentric.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Language of Ash

He was standing rigidly by the throne. Next to him were his mother and his sister, and on the throne was his father. Formal looking officials littered the other side of the fire throne, where a dark shadow sat, looking imperiously down upon the people gathered before the royals of the Fire Nation.

They were in a line, in twos or threes, and were brought up before the Fire Lord, who barely glanced at them before looking away, his dismissal clear. There were so many of them; he found himself blurring their faces, until they all ran into one another.

"Stupid idiots," his sister scoffed, watching a strong middle-aged man face the Fire Nation ruler straight-backed and proud. Her golden eyes flashed, and she smiled viciously as he was sentenced to death with the rest of them.

"The uprising was a thorn in the Fire Nation's side for a few years; now that it's over and all the inhabitants killed, there won't be anything else for us to worry about for a couple of years." The young prodigy continued, giving the next two women a brief once-over before turning back to her brother.

He was inclined to agree with her, but didn't say anything, just watched. He was going to rule this country one day, and this was part of his lessons on how to, as his father had hinted.

His mother watched too, with the same indifference as the rest of them. He looked up at her, but she avoided all his attempts to catch her eye, and the young prince finally gave up, turning back to the line of prisoners.

Ursa sighed inwardly. She watched her son out of the corner of her eye, his young face eager to meet her gaze for some reason or another. Perhaps just to have someone else to talk to besides his sister.

"How do you think they're going to die, Zuko? Hanging? Throats sliced? I'm betting it's going to be being burnt, since we are firebenders, of course." She looked at him, a glint in her eyes that shouldn't have been there so young.

"Maybe father will chain them to the Hu'Toroi Mountains," Azula mused, a distant look coming over her face. "Then the buzzard-flies will eat them alive." A malicious giggle escaped her. "It's so hot up there; they're probably always looking for food. I heard that they aren't picky with what they eat."

Zuko's stomach lurched, and he thought for a moment of the old woman now standing hunched over in front of him being eaten alive by those enormous animals. He could feel blood draining from his face and tried desperately to block out Azula's voice.

"That's quite enough, dear," Ursa quietly but sharply reprimanded her daughter, causing Azula to stop talking. "Your father will deal with them as he sees fit."

Azula made a face once their mother went back to watching the procession of people, like a gloomy parade. Zuko clenched his jaw and stood almost at attention, muscles so tight that he was almost shaking.

And the faces kept coming. He couldn't make out their features, and none of them stood out, left in imprint on his mind. Once they left his line of vision they were banished from his memory, as was the next person, and the next. None of their lives mattered, and there was just nothing  _about_ any of them.

Two children were up next in line. Zuko's stomach made a hurried flopping movement. He hadn't realized that children were going to be here too. They could be killed as well…

The boy mentally shook himself. Why was he worried about two children's lives? It was all helping the Fire Nation in the long run, and it was only two kids; two wasn't that many, not compared to how many people there were in the world.

_But if you're willing to kill two, how many will be next?_  A voice in his head asked, a voice seemed vaguely familiar to him. Was it someone in the palace that he knew? Maybe it was just his conscience.

Whatever it was, he shooed it away.  _It's just this one time._ He assured himself, more to relieve the feeling of guilt that had just recently settled in his gut than anything else.

_Who are you trying to kid? You start now, and you're not going to be able to stop._

Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about!

_You start now, and you're going to end up like Azula… and you **know** what she's going to end up like._

Stop it! He cried to himself, tightly closing his eyes and trying to block out the smooth voice of truth.

_You start now and you'll become a monster… you'll tell yourself, "this is the last time, this is the last time,"…_

Stop it, stop it! His rational voice was growing louder, uselessly trying to smother to slippery tones of his other self.

_But you won't stop, and after a while it won't matter anymore…_

"Stopitstopitstopit," he whispered harshly, his eyes snapping open. It had seemed like an eternity, but it had only been a few moments that he had been arguing with himself, and the children were still standing there.

That was when he met their eyes.

There were two of them, a boy and a girl. They were wearing shabby Earth Kingdom clothes that looked as though they had been through a lot. Both were barefoot, and their skin was dirty, as was their black hair that fell untrimmed and in lanky locks.

But their eyes were both a bright green. In their eyes, he saw something that he had never seen before, and most likely never would again. They both glanced up, and the children, the three of them, made eye contact in a language that adults could never comprehend.

There was a boy who looked about Zuko's age. He was holding the hand of the girl, who was younger. She clung desperately to a doll, and there were tearstains on her grimy face, a sure sign that she had been crying recently.

The girl's eyes were very large for her head, as she hadn't grown into them yet. He looked into them, and saw a forest, a forest of green that he could almost smell, feel, touch. Her eyes were deep and shady as a wood, and just as mysterious. The green was peaceful, yet the peace had been disturbed.

The boy's eyes were the same shade of green, but his were different. Deep like, green pools in a cool cavern. Just as clear, too, and swirling evermore, in a slow dance, moving in a continuous circle, the green swishing easily. The color and movement was mesmerizing, almost hypnotizing, and Zuko couldn't help but watch.

They spoke to each other in a silent way that made shivers go up and down his spine. He could feel something more going on here, but what it was, the name of it was just beyond his grasp.

_Calm, controlled, unmovable, unfeeling, strong, rational, indifferent…_

The children didn't beg or plead, and they weren't crying. They just held hands and stood there, waiting to be dismissed like so many before them. The boy who was Zuko's age, the only thing that he was giving away was that he would defend this girl with his life. Was it his sister, perhaps?

_A leader, a strategist, cool, smart, royal…_

And in these few seconds, something unbelievable happened.

_A prince, the heir, the eldest son, a firebender…_

A golden torrent crashed and thundered onward, like water only thicker. It sloshed with the power of its rush, and it kept running, on and one and on, like a river going to the sea, only, it never got there.

A green stream of something-thicker-than-water grew until it was rapids, and same rushing, gushing, crashing column of liquid as the gold. The colors headed dead on, straight towards each other, collision course and unavoidable.

When the two met, stars erupted in front of Zuko's eyes. The only thing that stopped him from staggering back was his determination that he wouldn't be beat by some colors and a few little whats-its liquids!

And in the moment that the stars cleared, and he could see again, there it was. The yin and yang sign that haunted all his nightmares and told him that what his country was doing was wrong. There was the green side with a dot of gold in it. And there was the gold side with a fleck of green in it.

The while thing sparkled and swirled, but never crossed the boundaries, although it did push at them, sometimes giving the lines a lumpy look. The sign of balance covered his whole vision, expanding until it was all he could see, burning the image onto his eyes and into his brain.

And then it was gone. The two children (siblings?) were walking away, and the next two of the rebels were coming forward, being presented dishonorably to the Fire Lord and his family, plus all the officials of the palace.

Zuko felt unreasonable panic rise in his chest and he started to breathe raggedly, looking up at his father, who had just told the two they would be killed with all of the others. And for some reason, this bothered him unduly.

"No," he whispered to himself, his voice just as chocked and hoarse as it had been before, when talking to himself. "No, no no no no no, no, stop it, no, don't do it!" he was muttering to himself.

"Father!" he finally called up to the Fire Lord. The man stiffened and turned to look down at him. He had interrupted and therefore dishonored himself and his father. But he withheld punishment, deciding that it could wait until later. This young boy was still his heir, after all.

"Father, you can't kill them!"

This simple sentence caused a flurry of action and mutterings around the room. The Fire Lord stiffened even more, until he looked like a poker. He told his son in a dangerously quiet voice, "I shall kill them because they were part of the uprising. You will not question my judgment!" and that was the end of the discussion for him.

But it wasn't for Zuko. "But Father, they're just kids-!" he was cut off by his mother putting a light hand on his shoulder. He looked up into his mother's sharp eyes and stopped speaking.

"Zuko, dear, your father knows what he is doing," she told him, and the young fire prince shut up.

The murmurings of the other people in the room continued, but Zuko ignored it. He kept his eyes pinned to the backs of the children. They were walking towards where all the others waited, as though they hadn't heard him asking for mercy for them. Then they turned around, and again their eyes all met.

And Zuko knew that they had heard him. And he knew that they appreciated it. And so many more trivial little details passed between them, all because green and gold met so briefly, in a tongue, in a song that no others could understand.

"Zuko?" The prince had forgotten that his sister was there, standing next to him. She hadn't said anything in a while. "Did you see that?" Azula's voice was hesitant, contrary to what she normally spoke like.

"Yeah," Zuko told her quietly, gold meeting gold as he turned away from the children that he had just told his whole life story to. And in his sister's eyes he saw an infinite universe. "Yeah, I saw that."

And they had told him theirs.


End file.
